Road safety is a collective responsibility of all road users including vehicle drivers, motor cyclists, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Poor road safety may cause accidents. The causes of accidents include breaking the road rules and bad quality of driving (or bad driving performance). Accidents may be minimized if road users collectively identify the particular users whose actions may cause inconvenience or pose hazard to others and inform these users about their behavior by some appropriate means.
In general the bad driving quality of a driver may cause traffic congestion and even may cause accident. In addition, a driver with bad driving quality may also increase maintenance cost of a vehicle, increase emissions, and affect other road users. In some situations, drivers may not be aware of their driving mistakes and their quality of driving. For example, a driver may lose concentration on driving due to distraction or other reasons. This loss of concentration on driving may cause the vehicle to go too close to the vehicle ahead or cross lane markings and may pose potential hazard to other road users, disruption to smooth flow of traffic or even cause an accident.
Improving driving quality of drivers is good for improving the safety of all road users. Generally, learner drivers get training or coaching to pass a driving test, and once they successfully completed the test, they receive minimal or no formal training, or even any kind of feedback message on their quality of driving to further improve thereof. There are systems developed to provide feedback based on the data received from sensing devices. However, these systems are generally expensive and do not provide a human level of assessment on every aspect of driving depending on the current traffic conditions. For example, systems monitoring velocity, acceleration and braking of a vehicle may not provide correct a feedback message on whether a driver maintains the vehicle within the lane markings, stops before the lines marked at a traffic signal, correctly indicates before making a turn, or maintains a safe distance from the vehicle ahead. Sometimes, the maximum safe speed for a road segment may not always be the posted speed. It may depend on a number of factors including weather conditions, traffic conditions, and road conditions. Further, if there are children playing on roadside or animals crossing the road, it is not advisable to drive in a high speed or even at the posted speed. However, it is difficult for a sensor-based system to account for all the different factors when assessing the driver performance.
In particular, providing feedback message on each aspect of driving (whether minor or major violations) instantly or at an appropriate time may be useful to identify on what aspect of driving a driver needs improvement, and on what driving aspects a driver is performing well. Further, if a system provides an appropriate user interface to easily identify the vehicle involved in the violation, collect appropriate data automatically, and provide an appropriate interface based on the current conditions may be useful for a user to send appropriate messages related to the performance of a driver. A human may be able to assess the current situation better than a sensor based system and provide ratings on the performance of a driver appropriately. Providing some kind of feedback message instantly or at a later time on the driving quality of a driver is good for constantly improving the quality of driving or driving performance. Based on the feedback message, a driver may take steps to improve the particular aspects of driving that need to be improved. Good drivers may maintain their good quality of driving and bad drivers may take steps to improve their driving quality. Providing quick feedback message on driving improves the quality of all drivers. Improved quality of driving is good for better road safety, less accidents, reduced cost of vehicle maintenance, and good driving experience for all road users.